Certain political regions are phasing in requirements that vehicle exteriors be designed such that they minimize injury to a pedestrian's skull in the event of a collision between the vehicle and the pedestrian. Faced with this requirement, vehicle manufacturers are developing test tools for verifying compliance with the new rules.
One such family of test tools is devices for accelerating a placebo of the human skull, known in the art as a head form, towards a vehicle body portion. Devices known to the inventor include hydraulic actuators and mechanical spring arrangements that accelerate the head form; however, the inventors found these devices to be undesirably expensive in the marketplace. As such, the inventors have arrived at a pneumatic arrangement that provides a sufficient rate of acceleration and is economical to construct.